Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript
## John 18:1-13
### Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Today’s sermon text is found in John chapter 18 verses 1 to 13. John 18 we’ll read through verse 13 beginning at verse one. Please stand.

John 18. When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley where there was a garden which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas who betrayed him also knew the place for Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees went there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So if you seek me, let these men go.

This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken: ‘Of those whom you gave me, I have lost not one.’ Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus. So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink this cup that the Father has given me?” So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him.

First they led him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this text and your providence we have come to on this day. We thank you, Lord God, for the wonderful gospel we find in it. Help us, Lord God, to hear your Holy Spirit as he speaks to us. Open our hearts, Lord God, and transform us by the power of your sharp word that both brings us to repentance and heals us through the message of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank you, Father, for this day of gospel. Be with us in the context of the preaching of your word, that we may rejoice in this day, the day that you have made. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

When we come to a text in John’s gospel, we remember that it is the fourth in a series of gospels published probably about every decade for 30 or 40 years leading up to AD 70. The gospel was probably produced in the late 60s. As such, each gospel builds upon the other, and John’s gospel being quite different from what are called the synoptic gospels has its own perspective that it puts upon all the events in its entirety.

But certainly as we come to that section of the gospel dealing with the passion narrative—dealing with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—John has his particular perspective that he gives to us. Understanding that those who would read this gospel both when it was written and as we read it, as we go through a reading of the scriptures Matthew, Mark, Luke and then John, we would have known a lot of information and we would look for the differences in John’s narrative from the other versions of the gospel.

John’s gospel here in the beginning of the passion narrative gives a perspective on what’s going to be taking place in the next two or three chapters—what’s going to take place on Good Friday and Saturday and Resurrection Sunday. This perspective is kind of unique to John and is uniquely victorious in its character as we’ll see as we go through this text.

It may seem odd on Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, to turn to a text that really deals with betrayal. And yet, I think if we look at the text as it’s written and see John’s particular perspective, we’ll see reflected in it the gospel of the resurrection and the full import of what the message of that resurrection was and is to us today.

And I think it will bring us to a place of great joy and delight in this day. It’s already brought us such joy and delight as we’ve convocated together to hear beautiful music sung, to meditate as we go into the presence of God, and then have sung praises to God ourselves for the resurrection of Christ.

I want us to look at the text and again, I’ve decided to format the text in a particular way focusing on the three “I am” statements in the middle of the text. Now, the translation I read translates the phrase as “I am he,” but in the Greek it’s identical to just saying “I am.” And in light of John’s gospel where Jesus has very pregnantly produced seven sayings of his I amness throughout the gospel, when we come to it here with a threefold repetition, the text clearly wants us to focus on that at the center of this narrative.

So I built a little structure and outline of the text before us that kind of centers upon these three “I am” statements repeated in the middle of the text. And as we look at that, I’ve also decided to add verse 13 to the conclusion because the text begins with a location. We’re at a particular place. They go somewhere and at the end he’s led away from that place. So the text we have today takes place in a particular area in a particular geographic location. And so I’ve laid the text out in that way.

I want to spend most of my time on the very first point. In a structure like this in the scriptures—in any given scriptural text or pericope, a section of scripture that is a unit—the center of the text is obviously of quite great importance. But the beginning of the text also is exceedingly important for developing a theme. And here the entire text plays out really in the context of verse one.

When Jesus had spoken these words—so this is after the upper room discourse and his prayer—he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley where there was a garden. Now that is a statement that I’ll say at the end of today’s sermon encapsulates the entire gospel of John. Why? Well, we have to think about this a little bit.

Our savior during all of what we call Holy Week—from the triumphal entry unto his death and resurrection, or up to his arrest rather—every night he would go to stay on the Mount of Olives. So the situation was he’d be staying out there. He’d come into Jerusalem for the day and then at the end of the day he would retreat and go back to the Mount of Olives.

Now Jerusalem is here. The Mount of Olives we can think of here, and it’s a mount with olive trees on it obviously, and there’s a valley between the two. Now, there are still olives on that particular site just outside or to the east of Jerusalem. There are very ancient olive trees—certainly not going back 2,000 years, but going back a goodly number of centuries. And so for many centuries, this has been an olive hill.

And we’ll see that even David referred to this Mount of Olives in what he did. Well, Jesus to get to the Mount of Olives has to go through this valley, Kidron, Kidron. It means dark or shady. The term translated in my translation as valley really would be better translated as torrent. I think the King James probably has “brook.” And the idea is this valley during the dry season—by the time summer comes later, several months later—it’ll be pretty well dried up and there won’t be much of a brook left.

So it can be called the valley Kidron. But in the winter and spring, this valley would have at this stream, this brook Kidron running along through it. So as Jesus enters the garden with his disciples, he goes across a brook. And so this particular brook is what he traverses across.

Now it doesn’t say in the text here that he goes to Gethsemane, but in the synoptic text, it never tells us that it’s a garden, but it refers to it as Gethsemane. We’re used to the phrase “the garden of Gethsemane.” But that really isn’t in the Bible. The Bible tells us in the synoptics that he went to Gethsemane where he was arrested. And here in John’s gospel, he doesn’t ever say Gethsemane here, but he does say garden, which the synoptics don’t refer to.

So John finishes the picture of the gospel of Christ by telling us that Gethsemane was a garden. Now Gethsemane means “oil press.” And so the idea is that in this olive grove there was this garden and it was named for the press that was also in its immediate vicinity, where they would press out the olive oil from the olives.

And so Jesus goes into a garden. Now you couldn’t have gardens pretty much in Jerusalem because it was seen as unclean to put excrement or fertilizer on the land in Jerusalem. And so men had these beautiful gardens. The wealthy people would have land on this Mount of Olives on the side of it, which you could see from Jerusalem. And you could see Jerusalem from the garden. That’s where these beautiful gardens would be placed. These gardens would be locked.

And so when Jesus goes into a garden, it’s a particular locked garden. And apparently some wealthy man who had this garden had given Christ and his disciples access to it. We read later in the text that Judas knew he’d be there because that’s where he always went. So Jesus has a pattern of staying in this garden on the Mount of Olives.

Now this is pregnant terminology that we don’t necessarily immediately grasp. The garden we do, but the significance of the Mount of Olives isn’t necessarily immediately obvious to us. But if we think about this—if we think of the associations with the Mount of Olives in our savior’s ministry and if we think about the associations with the Mount of Olives and its relationship to the Old Testament—then we get a better picture of what’s going on here.

Our savior, as I said, would spend his evenings on the Mount of Olives at this same location. There is evidence—and now this isn’t precisely clear—but clearly his arrest takes place on the Mount of Olives in this garden of the Mount of Olives. His burial: we read from John later. When Jesus is raised up and Mary goes to see him at his burial place, she calls him the gardener because she’s in the garden. So it seems like John’s gospel begins and ends the passion narrative with a reference to the garden—here and then to the garden where he’s buried as well.

And so his burial is in this garden on the Mount of Olives. Then in Acts, we’re told explicitly that his ascension is also from the Mount of Olives. After he ascends and the angels come and talk to them, the men then leave the Mount of Olives and go back to the city.

So the significant aspects of our savior’s ministry—his arrest certainly, his burial and his resurrection, and his ascension rather—all occur in the context of the Mount of Olives, and there is goodly evidence that his crucifixion also occurs there.

Now here, not everyone would agree, but the scriptures tell us that Jesus’s crucifixion connects to an aspect of the temple—to the rending of the veil in the temple. And in the account of Christ’s crucifixion, we have some indicators that indeed this is the Mount of Olives.

First of all, we’re told that Jesus Christ is crucified on Golgotha. Now, Golgotha, as we’ll talk about later in this series in John’s gospel, is the place of the skull and seems kind of clear from the name Golgotha that there’s a reference to Goliath. You’ll remember that David had cut off Goliath’s head and took it back to Jerusalem. But you know, it’s an unclean thing. So David can’t put it directly in Jerusalem, but he’d want to put it someplace that was visible. And so the indication seems to be that the Mount of Olives would be it.

The Mount of Olives is mentioned several times in the life of David as a prominent place that you could see from Jerusalem. And so it seems—you know, we don’t know for sure—but it seems like Golgotha is probably that same Mount of Olives.

David himself, by the way, travels to the Mount of Olives after Absalom’s rebellion. David has to leave Jerusalem, crosses the same brook that our savior crosses—the brook Kidron or the valley Kidron—and goes to the Mount of Olives weeping, and the people weeping with him. And that’s told to us two different times in the account of David’s life. The first time it’s a reference to Absalom’s rebellion. And then later the account is given to us again, and the people are weeping and they tell David that Ahithophel has joined Absalom and his rebellion.

It’s not two separate crossings, but it wants to draw our attention to both the rebellion of Absalom, his son, but also the rebellion and the joining of Absalom by one of David’s chief counselors, Ahithophel. So very clearly our savior here leaves Jerusalem—where they’re plotting to kill him and they come against him—they’re a new Absalom so to speak. All of old Adam and his hatred of God is pictured in these men. His rebellion against the greater David, the ruler of the people. And we’ll see here in this text both church and state, and they’re joined by Judas, a traitor like Ahithophel was a traitor.

So the Mount of Olives was significant in the life of David and probably this is Golgotha, which is specifically identified as the place of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now couple of other references that are important for us to consider. We read in John 19:20 that many of the Jews read the inscription. This is the inscription on the cross of the savior. “For near was the place of the city where Jesus was crucified and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek.” Now some of your translations may read a little bit different, but literally we’re told that the people read the inscription. A lot of people did because the place was near to the place of the city.

The “place of the city” is specific jargon referring to the temple. Remember, the rulers are worried that the Romans will come away and take away our city and our place. What does that mean? Well, the place was code word for the temple or a symbolic word representing all the temple. So this tells us that wherever Jesus is crucified, it’s near to the temple, and the temple would be located in Jerusalem on the other side of the valley from the Mount of Olives.

So the indication is that this crucifixion and the sign on it could be read because it’s near to the temple, right across the valley from it, and so lots of people were reading it.

Another indication is in Luke 23:44-47, which reads: “It was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth in the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was torn in two.” So the sun is darkened for a while and then at the critical juncture as our savior dies, the veil of the temple is torn in two.

“When Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.” He had a long period of darkening. Then Jesus breathing his last in the context of the rending of the veil in two.

“So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God saying, ‘Certainly this was a righteous man. This was the Son of God.’” The centurion sees something, perceives something. What is it? Just that Jesus said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit”? Maybe. But the indication seems to be that the reference here is to this rending of the veil. And the centurion could perceive the rending that was going on in the veil—that you could see from the Mount of Olives.

Now it’s probably not definitive, but taken with all the other references to the ministry of Christ and his passion and his resurrection and ascension to the Mount of Olives, it seems that all of the events of what we celebrate at this time of year—all of them take place in the context of the Mount of Olives. His arrest, his crucifixion. After all, why would the Romans make up a whole new thing? They could take a crossmember and put it on a tree—probably an olive tree on this Mount of Olives. Why not? This would be the easiest way for them to crucify him. And then buried. He’s buried in the garden. It says explicitly, tying it to this Mount of Olives. His resurrection is there. And then finally his ascension is from this Mount of Olives garden as well.

So we see this significance of the Mount of Olives in the life of our savior. But there’s a further significance to the Mount of Olives that is very important for understanding the gospel message that we celebrate today.

The olive plant was very significant in the life of Israel. The great blessings of the covenant of the Old Testament were that every man would be able to have a vineyard. He’d have a field to grow his grain in so that he could eat bread from, and he’d have an olive as well. Those three items—bread, wine, and the olive tree—were the blessings to Israelites.

When the curses are enumerated, they’re also enumerated in terms of those three things, including olive trees. Gleaning laws are explicitly referencing the specific areas again of the grain field, the vineyard, and the olive trees. So this is a threefold pattern.

The olive has a long association in the Old Testament to the coming work of Jesus Christ as well. The temple and the tabernacle were very much linked to the olive, the olive tree. The doors to both the holy of holies and to the holy place in the temple were made of olivewood. So as you come into the holy place, you’re entering through olive trees—symbolic trees. The doorway is formed with olivewood.

In the holy of holies, the cherubim are overlaid with precious metal, but they’re actually constructed of olivewood. The Old Testament tells us important details. Olive trees are there in the context of the holy of holies—both in the entrance to the holy place into the holy of holies and the cherubim guarding over the throne of God as well.

Now the priests who would do their work in the temple and the altars—everything that’s used in the context of the temple, the major elements of it—we are told in Exodus and Leviticus that these things are all anointed with olive oil. So the trees go in as olive trees essentially. They’ve got olive oil. We have olive oil in the context of that.

So what we have going on in the Old Testament picture of what Christ will accomplish and what we celebrate this weekend is going on in the context of the olive groves. That’s where the yearly blood of atonement would be applied for the definitive cleansing, the rolling back of the effects of the curse in the old creation. That’s what the Day of Atonement was—a rolling back of the manifestations of the curse.

You know, my—I’ve got 10-year-olds—they know that Leviticus chapter 16 ends that section of Leviticus that deals with the cleansing of God’s house and his people. And the great and definitive rolling back of the effects of the fall is accomplished on the Day of Atonement. That’s what our savior does as he goes to death for us and as he goes into the heavenly throne room of God.

And all of this is accomplished pictorially in this first verse. John sets it all up for us in an olive grove garden. Jesus is entering into the holy of holies. In other words—you know, it’s interesting that Jesus comes forth from that olive grove in the garden to come to Jerusalem to pronounce—you know, to come in and to cleanse the temple definitively at the end of his ministry the way he had earlier.

He comes later and curses the fig tree moving from the olive tree, the garden, the olive grove. As he comes to Jerusalem, he pronounces curses. He pronounces blessings and receives the praise of his people. Jesus is ruling from the greater Jerusalem, the more holy sanctuary, from the true holy of holies that will itself be the place where his blood is applied in the definitive cleansing of his people and affecting salvation for them.

He’s already ruling from this place, bringing forth judgments and curses and blessings to others as he comes issuing out of the Holy of Holies. It’s all a picture of what will happen definitively after his resurrection.

But there’s another association with the olive tree that’s even more primeval, that’s even more fundamental and profound under the foundations of the story. And that is that the olive tree is one of the first things created on day three—it’s one of those first fruits that come up on day three. Not all the vegetation did. The vineyard did. The grain plants did. The olive tree did. Those three items again are not specifically enumerated, but the types of trees that come up in the third day—the first fruits of all vegetation—would include these things.

And most importantly, we know that what kind of branch was it, children, that the spirit—the Holy Spirit pictured by the dove—comes back to Noah’s ark with, saying that the judgment has passed and the new world has begun? What kind of branch is it? It’s an olive branch.

So the picture is that the old world is judged and done away with the coming of the flood. Noah’s picture of that. And the new world is pictured not ultimately by grain or even by grape, but it’s pictured by olive branch. The olive tree seems to be the first of the new creation that comes into being after the work of Noah on the ark.

You see, that’s exactly what’s going to be going on later when they build the tabernacle and the temple. The picture is that what’s going to be affected from the work in the great holy of holies, all of which this is a symbol of, is a new creation.

The reason why Aaron and his sons were ready to go on the eighth day after their anointing, and the altar is ready to go on the eighth day after its anointing, and everything starts after the eighth day—it’s a new creation. And what God is picturing on the Day of Atonement is the definitive coming of the rolling back of the old creation, the effects of the curse, so that the new creation might burst forth in its newness the way it did with that olive tree in Noah’s ark.

You see what we take—this simple place reference, read it in the light of the synoptic gospels and what he adds to it—now it’s not just an olive grove with an olive press where our savior’s spirit will be pressed out, as it were, for us, but it is a garden. And now we go back to the fundamental image of creation and recreation, and that is the garden of God. Because ultimately the tabernacle and temple are pictures of that garden again.

You see the primeval—the first garden—and now our savior comes to the garden to definitively bring to pass the new creation through his work on the cross. This is the significance of this simple statement in verse one: that Jesus Christ and his disciples go across this brook—a crossing of a threshold, going through water again; rebirth imagery is at play—goes into this garden, which we know, if we’ve read our scriptures and read the synoptic accounts, is in the mountain, Mount of Olives, and represents a picture of the original garden. The Mount of Olives and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ coming forth from that olive place.

You know, it’s interesting that in Zechariah’s vision of the temple, these two cherubim—olivewood cherubim—are seen connected with pipes, the oil that is upon them, to the lampstands. And the lampstands have this light of course being shed upon the world, but they’re fed by those cherubim. The olive oil that comes from that is what is lit.

So I wore this tie today. We understand that we’ve been grafted into the olive tree. Romans tells us we’re an olive tree ultimately. We understand that we now have been brought into the holy of holies through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that spirit flows from the throne room of God into the world bringing life and also bringing judgment to those who reject the new creation in Christ.

This is at the essence of who we are. This is the gospel and its direct applications to us. This is the significance of verse one and the simple, seemingly simple statement. We could run right past you probably have a hundred times as you’ve read through your Bibles. You’re going to run right past the reference, maybe pause to say, “Hm, well, this is the full significance of all these events.”

And it’s very important to see this work of the garden bracketing the rest of the story of the passion narrative. As I said, later in chapter 19 toward the close, we’re given back the reference to the garden again. And so whatever happens here happens in the context of the true holy of holies, the garden sanctuary in the Mount of Olives.

All of the picture and imagery of new creation and recreation are brought forth into the text for us.

All right. So let’s move on and look at the rest of this text. Secondly, we have in this garden then we have Judas, the heathen, and the peoples. And I’ve selected this a reference to Psalm 2: “Why do the heathen rage and the peoples imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed.”

Well, that parallelism in Psalm 2 refers both to the heathen, the kings of the nations, and the peoples—God’s people, Israel. And what’s pictured in Psalm 2 is what we see happening here for the first time really in John’s gospel. And predominantly—now this isn’t another change of narrative structure that John employs. The synoptics don’t talk about the Romans in the garden. John does.

John brings into the garden not simply the traitor, the obvious serpent who comes into the garden. He doesn’t bring in simply the peoples, the rulers of Israel. He brings them in. But he also brings in the Roman power. He brings in the civil state. He brings in the kings of the nations. He brings in the heathen as well.

Because Jesus is preeminently obviously already shown to be ruler over all of Israel. But now the passion narrative of John focuses a lot more on Rome than it does Israel. He’ll spend four times as much time talking about Christ’s interaction with Pilate in John’s gospel as opposed to the Jews.

So there’s a transition here. And what we’re seeing now is Jesus is going to be triumphant over not simply the Jewish opposition—the church at its best without obedience and faith in Christ—but against the civil state at its best without submission to Jesus Christ as well.

And so Judas comes in with the heathens and the peoples with him. And so these two groups, the serpent enters this garden. The serpent in the picture of Judas at the head, but really representing all groups that are represented here for us.

And by the way, there’s a lot of Romans. Judas is portrayed twice as the one who betrayed Jesus. Verse 2: “Judas who betrayed him knew the place. Jesus met there with his disciples.” Verse 3: “Judas having procured a band of soldiers.” That means probably at least 200 soldiers, maybe as many as 600. They expected trouble. They expected a fight here.

There was a regular station garrison of Roman soldiers overlooking the temple from a tower because they just wanted to keep, you know, they were the rulers. They wanted to keep riots down, etc. So they come out to arrest him.

So we find out here it’s not just a crowd as in the synoptic gospels, but that crowd consists of a whole phalanx or a whole group of Roman soldiers and then the temple guards as well—some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees. Again, more detail than the synoptics don’t give us.

And they come with lanterns and torches and weapons. They come expecting a fight. Now they expect them to run. They’re going to, you know, it’s full moon that happens at Passover time, but they’re expecting Jesus to run. And they’re expecting Jesus if he doesn’t run to fight. So they’re going to need weapons. They’re going to need lights.

And all this sets us up for the triumphant visage, countenance of our savior and his response to their approach. You see, it’s set up for us because the serpent comes, you know, kind of fearful of what he might do or where he might run, and Jesus is going to act completely in a contrary way to that assumption.

So Judas comes in and then we see Jesus’s omniscience and initiative in verse 4. “Then Jesus knowing all that would happen to him.” Again, let’s not pass over this. John and his passion narrative begins by telling us that Jesus knows everything that’s going to happen.

Now we know that already. We know he’s omniscient, but it’s important as we look at John’s reason for writing it the way he did. John is not portraying a victim. He does not portray the agony in the garden. He portrays the triumphant savior at one with the will of the Father, delighting to do his will and finish the work that he has been given to do.

He shows Jesus as the great conqueror even in the beginning—in the arrest and betrayal in the garden. We see Jesus here as conqueror.

And so we have this given to us: Jesus knows all that’s going to happen. And not only does the phrase tell us that, but he takes the initiative. He comes forward. He doesn’t wait for them to come to him. Jesus is taking the initiative.

Throughout John’s passion narrative, we’ll see that the trials that he goes through are not trials of him. He turns the tables and puts them on trial. They think they’re judging him, but he’s judging them. They’re coming to get him, but he’s going out to make evaluation of, to show them rebellion against God.

So we have the sovereign omniscient Lord. And then we have the first “I am” saying. He says to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answer, “Jesus of Nazareth.” And he says to them, “I am.” And so we have the first of three “I am” statements bringing us to the central point of what this text will be.

Now again, it could just be “I’m he,” “Here I am.” But it seems like, in the fact that tells us in chapter 6 that Jesus says he’s the bread of life. In chapter 8 says “I am the light of the world.” In chapter 10 “I am the gate of the sheep.” In chapter 10 “I am the good shepherd.” In chapter 11 “I am the resurrection, the life.” Chapter 14, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In chapter 15, “I am the true vine.”

The seven “I am” statements. Jesus—I’m sure because of the repetition here and the tieback to the rest of the gospel and the threefold emphasis—is declaring himself to be God incarnate. He is using the same name that the Jews knew was the name of God that he gave, which was really not a name by which we can comprehend or control him, but a simple declaration that he is. “I am that I am.” Yahweh, what we say is Jehovah.

Jesus is declaring his divinity and I think that we can see this as linked to what immediately follows it. We now have, immediately after Jesus utters this first “I am,” Judas who betrayed and was standing with them. So we’ve got Judas being associated with the mob again.

And when Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. At the center of the narrative is this middle “I am.” And on either side, Judas and the mob all are linked together and they all fall back when Jesus makes the simple declaration.

So you know, imagine the scene. These guys come out thinking he’s going to run or he’s going to fight. He takes the initiative and comes to them. He doesn’t lurk back into the shadows. He comes to meet them. He asks them, in fact, who are you looking for? He brings them to a recognition of their own sin. We’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth. And then he declares that he is God Almighty. I am. I am this man. I am God.

And they immediately fall down, fall backwards, struck. You know, in Revelation, he’ll slay them with the breath of his mouth. Well, here there’s a little picture of how that’s going to work out in history. The words of the Lord Jesus Christ will conquer all enemies. He is well able to conquer this group.

He makes a simple two-word statement in the Greek. And all his enemies—200 at least Roman soldiers, I don’t know how many temple soldiers—that, you know, some of the chief men of the priests and the Pharisees and Judas himself. They all get knocked to the ground with the simple declaration of our savior: “I am.”

And so we have this tremendous picture of the power, the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of an arrest scene, in the midst of a scene that will end with him bound. But we clearly know and the text wants us to hear it shouted out to us that this is a sovereign Lord who is in charge of every detail, who takes the initiative and has all power by which to resist if he deemed it proper this arrest of those who would bind him and take him away.

Then we have the second “I am.” Judas and the heathens and the peoples fall down and then we have the third “I am.” They get back up—brave men, they crawl back up. They come forward one more time foolishly. Oh, how foolishly. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

And he says, “So he asked them again, ‘Whom do you seek?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus answered, ‘I told you that I am.’”

But Jesus gives the third “I am” at the center of this narrative, the threefold declaration that Jesus Christ is incarnate God. And then we have the fulfillment of Jesus’s words, which sort of matches up to his omniscience.

He knows what’s going to happen. He is Almighty God and his activity, his relationship to the actions around him. He says, “I am he. If you seek me, let these men go. This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken: ‘Of those whom you gave me, I have lost none.’”

That was part of the prayer we’ve talked about for the last few weeks. He had just spoken these words, hours at the most before. And now he fulfills those words by telling these men to let go those that were with him.

You see how much he’s in control? He gives instructions. They don’t give the instructions. He takes the initiative. He knocks them down. He says, “Let these go.” Because he’s going to preserve the church. He’s going to preserve those. He doesn’t lose a one.

So on either side of this great “I am” are demonstrations that he’s the great “I am”—certainly the overwhelming force of the power of his word and also his omniscience and initiative. And here the fulfillment of his own word and the power of that word affecting the preservation of his church.

And so our savior demonstrates himself again to be victor, not victim, in his fulfillment of the word.

And then we have a reference to Peter in relationship to this group of men. And this is significant. “Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear.”

The right ear—the one that the priest would have anointed. All these associations come in. “Circumcise your ears.” We’re told in the Old Testament. Malchus comes out as a servant of the high priest. His name means “servant of the king” or “I am with the king,” or servant. So “servant of the king” is a good translation of Malchus.

Which king does he serve? That’s the question of the narrative. Here the declaration is that Jesus is sovereign. The question is what’ll happen to these men as time goes on. What will happen to Malchus? John doesn’t tell us, but the synoptics tell us.

We know by now. John doesn’t need to tell us that Malchus’s ear is here healed rather miraculously by our savior. It’s his last miracle apart from his own resurrection from the dead. But this is the last miracle of the savior—to give a new ear to somebody, to open the ear of Malchus.

Is Malchus here or not? It’s left vague. Some people think because he’s given the name, that’s an indication that these names are given to us of men who come to salvation. And so they think that’s the case here. We don’t really know though. But certainly it leaves a pregnant question for all of us, which we’ll ask at the end of the sermon.

So Peter hacks off Malchus’s ear. Jesus says to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink this cup that the Father has given me?”

Now we remember before the great discourse of our savior and before his prayer: those of you that have been here for this section of the Gospel of John, you remember that there was this gathering scene at the beginning, an action scene where the disciples wash each other’s feet, right? That’s the unity that Jesus will pray for in chapter 17. It’s a unity of service that he demonstrates to them by washing their feet and then telling them they should do this in the future.

And we remember that in that scene, Judas and Peter have prominence in that very scene, too, right? So we got this discourse and prayer. At the beginning, we have an activity involving Judas and Peter. Judas is going to deny Christ. Peter will also be predicted to deny Christ three times. He’s confident he won’t.

The text back in chapter 13 drew some parallels as well as some contrast between Peter and Judas. Well, here we are again after the discourse and the high prayer with contrasting comparison between Judas and Peter.

Judas is, of course, a bit of a coward. He’s got hundreds of men with him. Peter is brave. That’s good. He takes them all on with just one sword. Maybe because he’s been, you know, emboldened by them all being knocked down by the word of Christ. Well, maybe my sword can affect miraculous powers. Who knows?

So Peter is certainly contrasted with Judas in his courage. But Peter in a way is compared to Judas as well. I think some texts or some commentary say what we have here is two betrayals. Peter still does not know that Jesus must go to his death, or refuses to acknowledge it.

And as we’ve seen in the upper room discourse and the prayer, knowledge is ethical. Peter will not become obedient to this truth—that the savior must die to affect this new creation, not just his individual salvation of us but the new creation. Peter rejects that and he strikes out in force.

And so Peter is, I think, by the way the structure works with these “I ams” here and Judas here and Peter here interacting with these same men—he’s against them surely, but still we can see some comparison as well. That Peter isn’t against them in the proper way according to the way that Jesus says these things should be carried out.

Peter is rebuked by our savior. In the synoptics, our savior says those who try to live by the sword will die by the sword. And so Peter is rebuked.

But we have Peter here, the heathen and the peoples represented by Malchus. And then we have the location shift. Jesus is then arrested and they bind him and they take him off to the priest’s place.

By the way, this correlation of Peter to the priest, to the servant of the priest—this is very significant. It’s setting up for a discussion of Peter’s denials in relationship to the court of the high priest. We’ll talk about that when I get back from Poland, second sermon back. We’ll talk about this correlation between Peter, who’s in a sense the new, going to become the new high priest of the church, even though he fails miserably at first.

So we have this location marker before and after. That’s how the narrative works. It draws our attention here at the center to the great “I ams.” It shows us two sets of betrayals. I think it shows us the Roman army entering now with the peoples to work against Jesus. And it puts it all into this wonderful context of verse one—that there is this garden, the true holy of holies, the Mount of Olives in all the imagery that entails in the scriptures.

Four straightforward simple short observations.

First: Jesus, based upon this analysis of the text, is portrayed as the sovereign ruler in the opening scenes of John’s passion narrative, not as the victim. We see it over and over and over. We see it in the fact that he enters into a garden where they know he will be. He is not afraid of Judas knowing his location as he goes into that garden.

We see it as Jesus Christ—as I said—takes the initiative. They come forward to get him. They come out to the garden, but he takes the initiative and goes to them and questions them. “Well, what can I do for you here? Who are you seeking?”

We see it in the fact that he knows everything that’s going to come—everything that will take place. We see it in his—with a word knocking them all down to the ground. We see it in his deliverance of his people from their swords by telling those that would come out against him, “let these men go.”

We see it that even while he’s being arrested, he is performing this task of the preserving of his disciples that the Father will take up through the Spirit upon Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension. But you know what he does—it says in chapter 13: “Loving them he loved them to the end.” And here’s the great demonstration of his love at the end, just before the crucifixion. The love is preservation of his disciples. He’s in control, you see. He is the great “I am”—threefold times declared.

So we see—John’s narrative of the passion means it’s okay to talk about the betrayal in the garden on Easter Sunday because the way John pictures the betrayal in the garden is not as ultimately a loss but clearly linked to the new creation that Jesus will affect. And he gives us all these things, beginning, unlike the synoptics, that indicate the power, strength, authority, the victorious Jesus Christ over both the false church and the apostate state that had declared Caesar as God of gods and the one who brings salvation to men.

Jesus Christ is, in Psalm 2, bringing that to bear in our text. He is the great one who laughs and mocks.

David wrote about going through the valley of the shadow of death. “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” Jesus is in that valley. I don’t know if that’s the valley David was talking about in Psalm 23, but maybe it’s a dark valley, overgrown, kind of death-like. The brook is brown or fairly dark. The water apparently, because of the dirt that comes through it. He goes to the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus fears no evil for the Father is with him. Jesus is portrayed as the victor here, not as the victim over and over again.

The truth of Christ’s sovereignty is at work. If Jesus can knock down these men with a word as he’s being arrested, what will he do when he comes in power and strength—in resurrection power and ascension power? What will he accomplish through the church? He will, through the power of his word, slay the wicked and he’ll create a new world and make that manifest.

Secondly: Men are portrayed as betrayers of Jesus, wicked and stupid. So one of our guys said, “Women are evil and men are stupid.” I don’t remember how it goes, but all men are sort of pictured here. Whether it’s the wicked Judas or the stupid Peter, men here are not seen in a particularly good light. Men are portrayed as betrayers of Christ, helpless and old Adam.

We need salvation, not renovation. We prayed for unity last week. I preached on unity. And I’ll bet—I mean, I would just put real money, if I was a betting man—I would put real money that you had conflicts this week. You had conflicts and strife and trouble with your children, or your children with one another, or husband and wife didn’t fully have unity. An absence of unity was probably present, maybe even a presence of conflict probably in most of your homes. Operations of the church—you know, there’s all kinds of things that we can get ourselves all worked up about as we try to do work. It’s going to be difficult to live in unity.

What we need to live the way that we’ve talked about based on Jesus’s prayer is not renovation. I was working at our porch yesterday. I thought about this. We were trying to clean off our porch, and Elijah and I got it cleaned pretty good, you know, pretty good. And we can paint it, but I thought of that attic. It’s a furniture ad or what all you’re doing is putting lipstick on a pig.

You know, the porch is an old porch and it’s not going to be a new porch. It’s going to continue over time to wear out. That’s like us. Some people get involved in church and in Jesus and reading their Bibles because they’re trying to renovate their old person, right? We just need to be a better man, right? I just need to be better about this. The Bible says the best you’re going to be is stupid Peter. And in all likelihood, more often than not, you’re going to be wicked Judas.

The Bible says at the heart of men is a hatred for God. How did these men who had seen three years of miracles—who then are knocked to the ground with a simple declaration of who Jesus is—how do these men get back up in the presence of the Almighty God incarnate? How do they even get back to their knees? And then how do they fulfill their task of arresting this man and thinking they can bind him? It’s almost comical that he’s led away bound.

How do they do that? How does Malchus have his ear cut off, healed, and put back on? How does he then continue with this arrest of Jesus? And how do the men who sit there and watch—it was full moon, they could see it—watch Jesus heal this ear and give the guy a new ear? How can they see that picture of the new creation, the power and love and mercy of Christ, and arrest him?

How can you and I go from this place, this garden, this holy of holies, this place where we’re empowered by the Spirit of God—how can we go home and argue with one another? How can we go home and treat each other with disrespect? How can we not be sensitive to each other? I said things to people this week that were insensitive of time and place. How can we do that?

Worse: How can we actually engage in specific sins of commission? Not of omission rather, but of commission. You know, you sinned this past week. That’s what you meditated on at the beginning of the sermon. How can we do that? You see, in Adam, there’s no way out of it. This is who we are. We don’t need renovation. We need new creation.

Jesus didn’t come as a moral teacher, a philosopher, an example to us to show us kindness. No, he came to affect a new creation. He didn’t come to clean up old Adam. He came to produce new Adams.

Now our calling is to walk in that power of the new creation. But this text shows us you can’t get there. You can’t get to walking in the newness of life of Jesus Christ if you don’t recognize how horribly depraved, twisted, and God-hating we are apart from the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And these men here show us just that. They show us the depth of human depravity.

One of the divines in 1669 wrote a book called “The Plague of Plagues.” And he said this: “The sinfulness of sin not only appears from but consists in this: that it is contrary to God. Indeed, it is contrariety and hatred itself. Carnal men or sinners are called by the name of enemies of God in the scriptures. But the carnal mind is called enmity or hatred itself against God.

In the scriptures, the carnal mind is called enmity. Accordingly, sin and its acts are expressed by names of hatred and acts of hostility.” And then he lists various terms from the Bible, from the New Testament, that tells us what men are like: “Walking contrary to God, rebelling against God, rising up against him as an enemy, striving and contending with God, despising God. Men are haters of God, the Bible says, even blasphemers, fighters against God and in short very atheists—who say there is no God.”

It goes about to “ungod” God—the human personality and its fallen nature does it and is by some of the ancients called “deicide,” which means “God murder.” You’ve got parricide. This is deicide. It’s what the heart of man wants to do. It wants to kill God. And that’s what we see in this garden. We see fallen man in his complete hatred of God. And that’s who we are. You can’t renovate that kind of person.

You can’t work around the edges to bring newness of life or development with them. No, what we need is not renovation. We need a whole new creation.

But of course, that’s exactly what the text tells us.

The third simple point: Jesus is portrayed as new Adam in the garden. The end of the entire passion narrative is prefigured in its opening verse. Unlike Adam, he faithfully guards the bride and exercises faith in the Father. That’s what Adam didn’t do. Do you remember? He didn’t trust God and he didn’t guard his bride.

What is Jesus’s act here in the context of the arrest? It’s guarding the bride. What’s the one thing he takes the initiative to do? “Let my people go.” God, he’s going to preserve those. He prayed for their preservation. He works for their preservation. And he does it by being the appropriate husband.

Husbands, you know, if you’ve been at this church very long, our tasks are to guard and nurture our wives. And Jesus guards his disciples. He does it two ways. You see it in the text. He guards them two ways. What is it?

First is obvious: He guards them physically from external enemies. He secures their protection from external enemies. But he also guards them by rebuking their sin. He also guards Peter by telling him that’s wrong. You’re going in the wrong path here. We’re to guard our brides and they’re to help guard us, but we’re to guard our brides by keeping them from external enemies but also by encouraging them in the way of the Lord and taking them apart from their sin that like us so easily besets us.

Jesus is in the garden. He’s affecting. He is faithful Adam. He trusts the Father and he loves the bride that the Father has given to him—the church. And his very actions are taken to produce a new bride so to speak, to bring about the new creation. And in the context of that new creation, new husbands perform the task that Jesus performs in this garden.

He guards us from external enemies and he guards us as well from internal enemies. The Lord Jesus Christ is seen as the greater Adam in the greater garden bringing about the very thing that the world needs: recreation, new world.

Times are different and as a result, the fourth observation: The text is an encapsulation of John’s gospel. Jesus has affected a new creation. That’s the gospel. The gospel is not just that men can believe in God and be saved from their sins. That’s not gospel. That’s not new news. That’s old news.

Now it’s new in the sense that it’s effective, definitively by the Savior, but it’s old news. Listen to this from the Old Testament. God told Moses this: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.”

What does this declare? It declares that God has sovereignly elected him, right? God’s chosen him. I’m your God. You’re my people. I have redeemed you from the realm of sin and death. I have brought you into salvation. I’ve redeemed you from sin and death, right?

Put all your faith and trust in me. That’s what we think of as the gospel—that God saves us and we’re to put trust and faith in him. And that’s certainly part of the gospel. The gospel is of first importance that Jesus died for sinners and was raised up. But Jesus didn’t raise up just to affect personal salvation and bring to pass what God had told Moses was already his possession. Something different is at work.

You know, Paul told the Corinthians the story of Moses. You remember Moses? He goes up to the mountain of the Lord and his face shines when he comes back and it shines and he’s embarrassed and they put a veil over it. But after a while, he doesn’t need the veil because the glory fades.

Now Paul tells the Corinthians about that and then he tells them that now it’s not like that anymore. Now we, beholding with unveiled face Jesus, go from glory to more glory. Our faces shine brighter on the path. I don’t know all that means, but I know that it means a definitive change has happened in the world because of what we celebrate today.

And I know that it’s all linked up. This gospel of John has been written that you might believe. He tells us in chapter 20. And that believing you might have life in him. That life is new life, new creation.

All those pictures from the Old Testament—whether it was the olive tree after the ark or the olivewood and the holy of holies—they were all telling us that something fantastic was going to come. The whole world would be remade. A new creation would be affected by what was being portrayed in those pictures of the old.

And here we have our savior working in the context of the holy of holies, the olive grove, and the garden therein, doing just what was promised, producing a new creation.

And in this creation, saved saints no longer have a fading glory the way Moses did. We have an increasing glory. And if the church of Jesus Christ sent into the world as a fiery stream has an increasing glory on our countenance, on who we are—not literally being seen, but being seen by our works, by our words, by our actions in the world—then what will that be? That will be life to the world.

Jesus has come to affect nothing short of a new creation. Now that is not a theology. That’s not a philosophy. That’s not some abstraction. What the text wants us to know is it happened and it happened literally 2,000 years ago. The world has not been the same since.

Now people can continue to live in the old world. But that word of Jesus Christ is blowing it all away—the old. The Spirit has come to empower God’s people to speak the word of Christ. And the old world is simply being blown away and it falls over and the new world is being established.

The only shaking left now is the shaking of all things that can be shaken—the old creation—so that what cannot be shaken, the new creation and kingdom of God, might be manifest. That’s our task.

You know, I met for a political action planning session last week. We used our vision process we use here somewhat. And one of the mission statements that came up with is the purpose of this group would be to change Oregon public policy to conform to biblical truth or biblical values. And one of the guys wasn’t happy with that because, well, I’m not sure that’s what we want to do. All we want to do is, you know, everybody else gets to keep saying what they’re going to say too. So all we’re trying to do is say what we think it should be.

But you see, the group and we effect—we change—conform to effect because it sounds a little more the way the gospel really works is to affect change, not to force conforming by the power of that sword that Peter tried to use, but rather to affect it and to reflect biblical values.

But that is the goal, you see. And we don’t know that we can affect that next year or ten years or a hundred years or anything else. But we want to be part of the future. We want to be committed to what Jesus Christ has brought to pass definitively and is now manifesting in the world.

And anything short of a vision for your life, attempting to live in the context of the new creation, is a shrinking back to the old world and a failure to recognize the new one that’s come.

Why do you seek Jesus today? Jesus asked them several times, “Whom do you seek? What do you want? What is it you’re looking for here?” That was the same thing Jesus asked in the first couple of chapters of the disciples. Do you remember? They came up to him, the disciples of John. “Whom do you seek? What do you want?”

There were people in the garden who couldn’t ignore him anymore. They couldn’t just go about their lives anymore. The reality was too strong. They either had to suppress him by killing him or they had to force him to conform to their view of how it was, or like Peter, conform to a political vision of what was going on—ultimately that things would happen by physical force as opposed to what he had just seen: the word of the Savior blowing away the old creation.

What do you seek here today? You want to grab ahold of Jesus and use him for your goals and abilities, which are in the old order and which are bound to fail? Or do you seek today the Savior who has brought about the new creation and empowers you to walk in the future, to change your present knowing that the future has arrived now? We’re in the new creation now.

Ultimately, we’re all Malchuses, right? We’re servants to kings. We’re going to serve somebody, as David said. Who are we going to serve?

He has today spoken into your right ear. He has told you, “I brought about a new world, a new creation, and I call on you to live in the context of that newly created order.” He has taken off your old ear that wants to live in the past and in your ideas and your visions, your plans, and just fit Jesus into them. He’s cut it off and he’s put on a new ear that’s open to God’s word.

And he has told you the world is made over. And all that refuses to work in the context of that is being blown away. Establish yourself, establish your family, establish your vocation in the new order, the new world, the new creation. You believe it?

Let’s pray. Father, we do believe. We have great joy in your presence today knowing indeed that the world moves in terms of our Savior’s dictates. We thank you for this beautiful portrayal both of man’s depravity but more importantly of our Savior’s sovereignty and his care for his church and his bride.

Help us to come forward joyful and exuberant in our joy for Jesus Christ, affecting what we know we all need—a new creation. Help us, Lord God, to move and to live and to have our being in the context of this new creation of our Savior and to shun the old man and walk in the new. In Christ’s name we ask. Amen.